Vocation : Science : Astronomy

Pål Brekke (born 23 May 1961) in Oslo, Norway) is a Norwegian solar physicist astrophysicist who received his Cand Mag. degree in astrophysics from University of Oslo in 1985 and PhD, from University of Oslo in 1992. His thesis focused on the ultraviolet (UV) emissions from the Sun observed with instruments on sounding rockets and the space shuttle Challenger. His work focused on dynamical aspects of the Sun and measuring variations in solar UV radiation. Since 1993 he participated in the Norwegian involvement's in preparing the EUV spectrometers CDS and SUMER on Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and was in charge of developing analysis software for CDS. After the launch of SOHO in December 1995 he was part of the science operation team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. In 1999 he joined the European Space Agency (ESA) as the SOHO Deputy Project Scientist stationed at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. He was also in charge of outreach and media activities, making SOHO to one of the most well known current satellite projects.
He is now a senior advisor at the Norwegian Space Agency. He is a Norwegian delegate to the ESA Science Programme Committee (SPC), Programme Board of Human Spaceflight, Microgravity and Exploration (HEM) and Situational Awareness (SSA). He is also a delegate to the International Living With a Star (ILWS).
Served on several NASA Review Panels and as referee for various scientific journals. Professional publications: Refereed Journals – 42, Proceedings – 69, Popular Science – 22. Numerous appearances in national and international news-networks (CNN, USA Today, Der Spiegel, BBC etc.). International recognized lecturer on the Sun, The Sun Earth connection and the Northern Lights.
He has published several popular science books:

Den store boken om astronomi
Sola – Vår livgivende stjerne
Our Explosive Sun
2013: Nordlyset – en guide (Forlaget Press). Historien om Nordlyset og en guide til hvordan oppleve og ta bilder av Nordlyset.
2013: The Northern Lights – a Guide (Forlaget Press).
2013: Il Sole (Daedalus Edition). Italian version of "Our Explosive Sun".
2013: Le Soleil, notre étoile (CNRS Editions). French version of "Our Explosive Sun".

Owen Jay Gingerich (; March 24, 1930 – May 28, 2023) was an American astronomer who had been professor emeritus of astronomy and of the history of science at Harvard University and a senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. In addition to his research and teaching, he had written many books on the history of astronomy.
Gingerich was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the International Academy of the History of Science. A committed Christian, he had been active in the American Scientific Affiliation, a society of evangelical scientists. He served on the board of trustees of the Templeton Foundation.

Alexander Stewart Herschel, DCL, FRS (5 February 1836 – 18 June 1907) was a British astronomer.
Although much less well known than his grandfather William Herschel or his father John Herschel, he did pioneering work in meteor spectroscopy. He also worked on identifying comets as the source of meteor showers. The Herschel graph, the smallest non-Hamiltonian polyhedral graph, is named after Herschel due to his pioneering work on Hamilton's Icosian game.

Colonel John Herschel (29 October 1837 – 31 May 1921) was an English military engineer, surveyor and astronomer. He was the son of Sir John Herschel, 1st Baronet, and grandson of William Herschel.

Sidney Carne Wolff (born 1941) is an American astrophysicist, researcher, public educator, and author. She is the first woman in the United States to head a major observatory, and she provided significant contributions to the construction of six telescopes. Wolff served as Director of the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO). She is a member of the International Astronomical Union's Division G: Stars and Stellar Physics.

Jean-Charles Houzeau de Lehaie (October 7, 1820 – July 12, 1888) was a Belgian astronomer and journalist. A French speaker, he moved to New Orleans after getting in trouble for his politics in Belgium.
In the U.S. he continued his journalistic, astronomical, and political pursuits. He was an abolitionist and joined with unionists in Texas before the American Civil War. In New Orleans he worked with Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez at the newspapers he founded in the 1860s.
Houzeau migrated to Jamaica in the postwar years. After reinstatement from an observatory in Brussels, he returned to Europe to work. He came back to Texas for an astronomical event. He published stirring memoirs and other accounts of his adventures and contacts during his travels, as well as several works on astronomical subjects.

Gustave-Adolphe Hirn (21 August 1815 – 14 January 1890) was a French physicist, astronomer, mathematician, and engineer who made important measurements of the mechanical equivalent of heat and contributions to the early development of thermodynamics. He further applied his science in the practical development of steam engines.

Donald Delbert Clayton (March 18, 1935 – January 3, 2024) was an American astrophysicist whose most visible achievement was the prediction from nucleosynthesis theory that supernovae are intensely radioactive. That earned Clayton the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (1992) for “theoretical astrophysics related to the formation of (chemical) elements in the explosions of stars and to the observable products of these explosions”. Supernovae thereafter became the most important stellar events in astronomy owing to their profoundly radioactive nature. Not only did Clayton discover radioactive nucleosynthesis during explosive silicon burning in stars but he also predicted a new type of astronomy based on it, namely the associated gamma-ray line radiation emitted by matter ejected from supernovae. That paper was selected as one of the fifty most influential papers in astronomy during the twentieth century for the Centennial Volume of the American Astronomical Society. He gathered support from influential astronomers and physicists for a new NASA budget item for a gamma-ray-observatory satellite, achieving successful funding for Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. With his focus on radioactive supernova gas Clayton discovered a new chemical pathway causing carbon dust to condense there by a process that is activated by the radioactivity.Clayton also authored a novel, The Joshua Factor (1985), a parable of the origin of mankind utilizing the mystery of solar neutrinos; a science autobiography and a memoir; and a history of the origin of each isotope, Handbook of Isotopes in the Cosmos (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003).
Clayton died on January 3, 2024, at the age of 88.